Saying Goodnight
by the Angelic Position
Summary: The only thing that touches us more deeply than love is death.


Title: Saying Goodnight  
Author: the Angelic Position  
Rating: PG-13 (mature themes)  
Summary: The only thing that touches us more deeply than love is death.   
Archive: Fanfiction.net; all others, ask permission before reposting elsewhere.  
Disclaimer: Devil May Cry and all related characters and events are the sole property of Capcom.  
  
- - - - -   
  
"Saying Goodnight"  
  
  
"Warm summer sun, shine kindly here;  
Warm southern wind, blow softly here;  
Green sod above, lie light, lie light --  
Good night, dear heart, good night, good night."  
  
-- attributed to Mark Twain, as the epitaph upon his daughter's headstone.  
  
  
  
The drive is long and silent, with her cool weight by my side. I can feel the shape of one of her shoulders gently pressing against  
me through the sheet, whenever we take a turn. Even little reminders like this are nearly too much. I'd be amazed that I'm still   
capable of driving if I could feel much of anything at all.  
  
I don't know where I got the car. I can't remember getting in. I only know where we're going in the vaguest of senses: out, elsewhere,  
*away*. Driving on autopilot, seeing my hands moving on the wheel as if watching them over my own shoulder like something in a   
dream.   
  
All I can think of is how cold she is, and how the sheets around her still smell, faintly, like the warmth of her skin.  
  
The drive is long and silent, and I'm taking it alone.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Why did I resist her for so long? This, the question I cursed myself with when I held her close or watched her sleep or tasted her skin,  
and the question that eats at me now: why did I wait so long to let her in? The question remains, a whiplash of an accusation, even   
though I already know the answer. Knowing only makes it worse.  
  
Why did I resist her so long? Because I was a coward and afraid. Because I'd lost so much before, and told myself it was better to be   
alone than to risk the pain of losing again. Because her face was too familiar. Because I was stupid enough to believe that love isn't  
worth its price.  
  
Because I wanted her in spite of all that and it scared the hell out of me.  
  
And so we ran around in circles for what felt like ages, with her at my heels like a hound and me too afraid to give in to what we   
both wanted. She was my partner in business and a stranger to my touch; I trusted her with my life, my father's sword, and nothing else.   
I didn't want her to leave but I was terrified of what might happen if she stayed, and I didn't know which would be worse.  
  
And through all this, she waited for me. She waited outside my walls with the patience of armies. Stone is less enduring. She waited   
the way oceans wait for rivers, like a mother with open arms.  
  
And then one day she got tired of waiting.  
  
Standing over me with the tip of her nose pink with fury and her eyes hot and bright, her power coiling around her in yellow bolts, the first   
thing I noticed was that I'd forgotten she was just that little bit stronger than me. The second thing I noticed was her hair. Where it wasn't  
crackling with magical electricity it hung jaggedly just across her shoulders -- those shoulders I kissed later with lips and tongue and teeth, the  
same shoulders that press against me now through the barrier of the sheet -- and it was no longer blonde but a coppery light brown. I can still  
remember the smell of the dye.  
  
"I am *not* your mother," she said.  
  
Among other things. Everything she'd been holding back came tumbling out, and everything she said was true. Simple, true, and as eye-opening as  
a knife in the dark. Pinned there beneath the boot pressing solidly against my throat and forced to see her for who she was, how could I help it? How  
could I help but love her, my Trish, with her knife-cut hair and her hands on her hips?  
  
How could I help but love her, and why did I wait so long? Oh, my Trish, my fierce sweet girl. If I'd known it'd be like this -- if I'd known, I wouldn't have  
waited a day. It hurts to breathe just thinking these things, remembering you that day.   
  
I lost you like this once already, my Trish -- wasn't once enough?  
  
* * * * *   
  
But the worst of it. The worst of it is this.  
  
In all that I've done, and all that I've seen, there's been plenty of evidence of Hell.  
  
I've never seen anything of Heaven.  
  
* * * * *  
  
The drive was long and silent, with her cool weight by my side, but we've arrived at last: the thick-wooded hill and mountain part of the state, miles from the  
city. No one will see us here. I leave her in the cold safety of the car while I watch my body go numbly through the motions of cutting the wood and preparing  
for the fire.  
  
I don't care what might happen to me for doing this if I get caught, since life without her is a jail cell anyway. This is how it must be done. No strange hands  
will touch her final nakedness; no strange eyes will violate the hidden things she kept beneath her skin. No coroner's cold steel. No embalmer's unsubtle needle.   
No paid priest mouthing the words of a tired ritual. My Trish was a fighter, and I will honor her body as her soul deserves.  
  
I cradle her body in my arms for the last time, wrapped in the sheets of our now-cold bed, before lowering it onto the rough heap of the logs. Gasoline splashed  
over the pyre immediately erases the lingering scent of her skin: another loss. Another part of her gone forever, and it will not be the last.   
  
Her sword I place on her chest and a final kiss I place on her brow, in thanks to the body I loved as much as the woman who inhabited it. Goodbye blue eyes,  
goodbye anger-pink nose, goodbye blonde-turned-brown hair. Goodbye to everything you were.  
  
I toss lit matches one by one onto the pyre. Goodnight, my love.  
  
I will stay and keep watch until nothing remains but ash, and the ash I will carry to the hilltops and scatter to the wind. After that, who knows -- it doesn't seem   
to matter much, right now. Maybe it will someday, but not today.  
  
Goodnight, my Trish.  
  
  
  
- - - - -  
Author's Notes: the idea for this piece came to me after reading news about a sequel game to Devil May Cry being released next winter, in which Trish will not be  
a playable character. Nothing was said as to whether or not she'll be in the game at all -- and if she does turn up I'll feel *very* foolish :) -- but I must say, there's an  
unfortunate feeling of "Blade II Syndrome" about the fact that she's not a playable character and a new female character is. Getting rid of one perfectly good and   
usable character with already-established ties to the hero in favor of a new one with whom the viewer or player isn't already familiar has never made sense to me, plot-  
wise or not. It remains to be seen whether or not the new female character will be just as likable as Trish, but I'm afraid I'm already biased against her. :)   
  
At the end of Devil May Cry, we're shown Dante and Trish as business partners, and given the events of the game, it's pretty reasonable to deduce that their personal   
relationship went even deeper than that. With all that in mind, why in the world would the new game find Dante without her, executive decisions at Capcom aside?   
Although relationships in the real world end for all sorts of reasons, one of the first that leapt to mind as a possibility in this case was Trish's death. Whether this is a   
valid story possibility or the result of my own morbidity is left for the reader to decide.   
  
If Dante's method of dealing with the body seems ghoulish and creepy to the reader, it's understandable, I guess, but that really wasn't my intent. Although I do see Dante as   
being a little bit off in the head (Freud only *dreamed* of Oedipus complexes like that), I don't see his actions here as being wrong or motivated by unwholesome intentions in   
the slightest. What with the deaths of his entire family, I imagine Dante was exposed to the unique horrors of the funeral and all that accompanies it at an early age, and would   
undoubtedly be very keen on avoiding the sight of yet another loved one trussed up like a wax doll in a box. Bereavement is pain enough without having to compound grief with   
the obscenity of a viewing. Dante has paid his respects and honored the memory of the dead in his own fashion, and honestly I could only hope to have such a dignified   
sendoff as the one depicted here. Death and how we deal with it is highly personal, and the rituals with which we do so should be as well. Keep those wills in order, folks.  
  
On a lighter note, the scene in which Dante remembers Trish knocking him down and forcing him to accept the fact of their feelings is more or less how my other piece   
("Untitled .... ") was supposed to end, for those of you who may have wondered. It strikes me that Dante is just stubborn and dense enough to need something like   
that to get the message across to him. :)  
  
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. Go hug a loved one, and be thankful that you're both alive.  
  
-AP- 


End file.
